Recent Additions

[starfire700]

It was both interesting and a nightmare when I was in the thick of it.

[early0electric]

I'm back from April YORK with 2 great additions to my collection.

First is this 1924 Dealer folder I found at the Wyndham. I've never seen or heard of this one before. It highlights the "NEW" O gauge Locomotives 253, 254, and 256. Shown are all the O Gauge outfits listing the new outfit number and what it replaces. Standard Gauge is on the back with nothing new added.

And then there's the Apple 152 stamped 153 as there is no reverse. Found in the Silver Hall.

 

 

I also found a MFG 150 with phantom spoke wheels!

All in all, a very good YORK.

[Terry]

The folder says they dropped the price of the 402 passenger set by $12.50 to $62.50. It's interesting that Lionel redid some of the standard line, then the next year did the O gauge line. We think in terms of early and classic period, but there was a 3-4 year overlap from 1923-27.

That green 153 is neat. That color is wonderful.

I'm green with envy!

By "Phantom Spoke" do you mean like the wheels on the 156 locos with the lines for the spokes by solid?

[early0electric]

Terry, Yes the MFG 150 has the 156 Phantom Spoke wheels.

 

[Terry]

I like that too, but the green one is the gem.

[early0electric]

Yes it is. You just never know...

[starfire700]

Is the 152/153 apple or P green, sometimes colors are confused and hard to tell in photos. Either way it is a beauty.

[early0electric]

Light Olive Green, Pea Green and Apple Green can all be confusing whether in pictures or in person. The 153 is Apple. Here it is with 4 - 154's, two of which are light olive and two are apple...I think.

 

 

 

[Terry]

Green is weird in terms of names.

I think those 154s are all light olive just different shades.   The pedestal headlight 154 is neat --  I don't have one of those.

Here's some green trains from the twenties and an apple green 253 from the early 1930s for color comparisons:

 

From the left is a pea green 38 loco, a pea green 801 stock car, apple green with dark green frame 253 loco, a 154 in light olive and a 38 in olive which is the same color as the light olive 154 next to it. Collectors call the apple green color "Stephen Girad Green" when it's used with a dark green contrast.


I got the two lower cars yesterday below:

 

35 and 36 cars with maroon painted doors and embossed door handles. Those are either the second or third versions from 1912/13. The first version  is on the top with different steps, railing and no door handles. I don't know if the door handles can be found on the cars with perforated steps or not. So I don't know if there is a variation between the btwo versions here. 

[early0electric]

Terry,
That's the problem, too many different shades that encroached on each other. Even Dark Green has different shades. Lionel didn't care if the paint was exactly the same shade as long as they had paint. They weren't making collectables, they were selling toy trains!

[Terry]

Anything that gives us an excuse to keep more trains is good. Plus we feel like we're learning something so there's an added bonus.

[starfire700]

For me the green colors that are close are Pea Green, Apple Green, Girard Green, 1935-Dark 45N Green and regular 45N Green.
Some are hard to distinguish unless next to each other. The main difference between Apple and Girard is application/patina. Apple is dip-painted, Girard sprayed, Apple also has a slight yellow tint compared to the "cooler" Girard. There also seems to be at least 3 different shades of mid-late 1930's 45N green: dark early and medium and light late colors, all spray-painted.
A 1935 820 Floodlight car can be a real confuser. Many have terra cotta decks overpainted with dark 45N green. The patina on these cars shows dip-paint runs and also orange-peel from the 45N that was sprayed over the terra cotta.
Age and storage conditions also affect the color we see on a train today, so as was said........"anything that gives us an excuse to keep more trains is good". 

[Terry]

I bought a bunch of trains out of a storage shed in Tucson today. All my other calls from down there weren't availible so I took the Honda. I packed it! Gas was 4.89 here, and 4.55 down south.

The woman's brother had a Lionel 6220 Switcher set with bell as his first train, and then bought used trains around the neighborhood with his paper route money. Not shown is a really dark - almost black - 318 with two 319 pullmans and a 322 observation in maroon with 100 series trucks, and an olive 8e with matching 337/338 cars. In O gauge there was some early maybe 152 set that only survived as peices of the motor and the bottom half of a 1918 era 820 boxcar. A beat up Blue streak, and an even more beat up gunmetal 238E freight set rounded out the trains.

I also got a bunch of Lionel bungalows, stations, bridges, and streetlight. Everything beat up and rusty. This kid had some cool trains, but treated them harshly and then stored them poorly.

I buy trains like these all the time and they weren't even worth photographing. But check out this pile:

I think the broken streetlight is Marklin - Some neat telegraph poles, some early celluloid animals, the green thing is a tin litho mail box that I like to put between the sets on my display shelves. That's an IVES warning post to let a man on the roof of a car know a bridge or tunnel is near  - I can't think of the name right now, but I'll put it on the layout.

Also a Gibbs deluxe gas station, a tin pull crocodile, and some slush cast - maybe Barclay?  -- Roadsters and an airplane:

 

The Gibbs gas station was made by my Grandfather's cousins. I have a small one on the standard gauge layout in the back but every deluxe one I've seen was trashed. So is this one:

 

Here's the telegraph poles. They have cast iron crossbucks nailed to wood poles. The bases are wood, and look to have been dyed green. Maybe they are Carlisle and Finch?

 

 

[Terry]

Here's a trolley with a bulb Mike will like. No. 100 with straight long couplers and only one headlight from about 1912.

 

 

 

This one is in really nice shape. This is the only item I won in Newton Darby auction.

[early0electric]

Nice! Yeah Terry, The bulb makes it!